


Two crows cried and the third could not fly at all

by Reyavie



Series: the goddess' hound [2]
Category: Celtic Mythology, Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Ambigous Relationship, Depictions of not-so-healthy relationships, F/M, Gods, Gods being Gods and meddling with humans because that's what they do, Half-Gods, Magic, Reincarnation ahoy, Sibling Relationship, Trojan War, Violence, sorcery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-01-26 17:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12562048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyavie/pseuds/Reyavie
Summary: “Come now, hound.” His eyes narrowed, firmly staring into hers, muscles tensed as an animal ready to jump. “This close to death and you haven’t awakened? I find that hard to believe.”Where the Hound of Chulainn wears Hector of Troy's guise and His Goddess follows.





	1. we place nine pure gifts upon your hands

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of "Only when the Raven landed..." in the middle of the Trojan war. How everything changes and everything remains the same. Broken into three pieces because it was becoming strangely long.

**xxxXXXxxx**

 

The night had barely begun to give its space to the sunlight. Fog persisted against the ground, crowning dust and stone with small pearls of dew. From her perch, Cassandra could almost believe the world to be at peace. Silent and cold, the field showed no signs of life, nothing except a persistent tension, thickening the air until the soldiers patrolling rushed their steps to find their way back inside.

“Will he be victorious?”

The Princess did not need to move to identify her visitor.

Hecuba was beautiful still. It was odd to see, especially when compared to the fair beauty of her daughter-in-law, but there was something in the dark hair, in the traces of her aged grey eyes, in strong features of her face and limbs which spoke of a day in which everyone stared as she entered. And they stared still. The vision of the human queen in the city’s walls was as abhorrent and unexpected as a Celt would be in Trojan lands.

Like the one who sat the stone walls above the battlefield, uncaring of the abyss stretching beneath her feet and above her head.

“Why are you here? The King ordered all to his side.” The Queen’s lips pressed together, lines of tension drawn over her features, culminating in her hands; tense and white and partially hidden by the darkened fabric of her dress.

It was tiring. Tiring to hear her, tiring to understand her or her family, tiring even to make sense of questions of mere mortality which she could not grasp. Cassandra had learned this at her mother’s heels, staring at her father’s frown and her brother’s concern at the odd comments she would deign to utter.

Children were not to speak but to listen. Women were not to speak but to be seen.

And she, who of those was solely one, spoke nevertheless because she was from the cold north, where her kind was wise and strong and knew the darkness as well as the palms of their hands. Where truth was their language and honor their lifeblood.

“You have not answered.”

She usually didn’t. Truth did not yield respect in those lands, not in her experience, at any rate. But the Queen had come, she had searched and was asking, something which showed more courage than half the population of those halls.

“Not as he is right now.” It was her last day underneath their sun. She could feel it in every bone in her body. In its honor, she spoke. “Not even if he was more than the name he claims. And I do not join the others because I have no reason to. Hector is not there.”

Silence fell between both women. Abnormal, heavy in the early morning and amplified by the lack of people around them. It had always been like this between her supposed human mothers. She had once wondered if they felt the alien, if they heard the unnatural and responded accordingly by pushing back before it touched them. It would be understandable. This was familiar.

The Goddess hidden in her stirred.

And yet not. What was this? Why was the air this tense, this cold, this _uncomfortable_ , reaching underneath her skin into her bloodstream, through her spine and towards her heart?

Her eyes moved away from the abyss to find Hecuba behind her. The Queen’s hands were bloodied, dark red staining the light dress she wore. Spine straight – and _trembling_ – she whispered unsteadily a litany of words, words which she should not know, words in a language she should never have heard in an action that made no sense to a Trojan.

_We bathe your palms in the showers of wine, in the crook of the kindling, in the seven elements, in the sap of the tree, in the milk of honey._

_“We place nine pure, choice gifts in your clear beloved face,”_ the Queen continued, unaware of what she was calling, of what she was summoning.

Dark and shadow and eyes of blood-red, Morrígan straightened finally from her perch and jumped towards the ground, an anger without name eating away at her sanity. “Who taught you this?” She demanded, gripping the woman’s shoulders between her hands. All pretenses were dropped and her voice was order and authority made sound. “You gave you the steps? Who brought you the items?”

The Queen’s hand, smudged and marred with red, tightened on her wrist. Head bowed, bowed, close to knelt and her crown did not matter then; she would have knelt, based herself at anyone’s feet such was the desperation she felt. Morrígan could scent the laurel on her skin, fresh wine upon a copper blade and the ash of a freshly lit fireplace. Above those, the blood shed slid against her skin, acrid and metallic, lodged in the back of her throat. _Nine gifts, nine._ Whatever trace of humanity in her faded as her magic rose in response to the ritual.

“I didn’t know her. I don’t,” the queen babbled. “She was fair and lovely and she had your eyes. She said, she told me, gather these. Gather all of these and come to her and she will act. Otherwise she’ll watch and heaven’s know I am sick of seeing her watching. Tell her to come. Tell her to come _fly with us_!”

 _Macha_.

Morrígan’s teeth grinded against each other.

“Please,” Hecuba continued. “I do not know what God you have the ear off. I do not understand you. I cannot claim to know you, even though you were part of my body. But please, I beg of you, my Cassandra, help your brother.”

The magic raged; it demanded.

“I am not Cassandra! You do not even know _my name_.” She was a Goddess, she was The Goddess, one of the few who they had on their side. "I am not one of your squabbling fools, ripping human lives in their playgrounds. I am..."

 _Macha, you wouldn’t_.

But she knew her sister. They were three made one, after all, the different sides to the world. Of course she would do whatever she wanted to call her back. Of course she would name her. _Foolish_ creature.

“There is one of my kind in the field,” she heard herself reply, unwillingly and dragged from her lips by the ritual. “My helping might lead to nothing. He does not want it.”

It would yield nothing and he would hate her for interfering.

“His mother wants it. The soldiers run to the fields and they never remember the mothers they leave behind, the ones that carried them and fed them. He is my boy.” The old hands clawed at her skin. “I carried him in my arms and fed him with my body. I taught him words and gestures, I guided him. Don’t let them take him from me. At least _try_.”

Desperate eyes stared up at her.

The magic tugged at her veins.

“I hear you, mortal.”

And in that moment, though Hecuba could not know it, Cassandra of Troy fell into nothingness.


	2. she would not play at her anymore.

 

**xxxXXXxxx**

 

The Goddess stood in the soldiers’ barracks, her pale blue dress comically inappropriate for the rough setting – thoroughly inappropriate for the _woman_ – hands tapping lightly at her side as an outlet for her eager energy. The dreary building was empty. All soldiers had been called to the walls, the orders of the King heavier than any need to rest, and none was left to question the Princess’s presence.

None but the Prince himself.

Hector had aged before his time during the siege of the city. His black hair, curly and short, hid white among its tresses, lines were drawn over his features, even (and especially) during restful moments. His eyes, the soft grey of his mother, seemed ancient when compared to the child Morrígan remembered. He looked halfway dead already, even when breathing and preparing for battle. Despair wove that into a person.

“You should not be here, sweet sister.” He looked unwilling to exchange words with her. Each was spat curtly, sharp as the sword in his hands. “Father will come soon. He will want you on the top of the wall with the others.”

She paid Hector no mind. Anyone in that city would know her presumed father would prefer her dead and buried. Possibly in a manner which brought no shame to his house.

Besides, how could she bear to listen to his drivel? A song whispered her name as she stood in that empty building.

It trailed over the weapons mounted upon the walls, it danced across the surface of a nearby sword, it played as her fingers tiptoed gently over its surface. The handle was smooth leather, old and well used; little crevices in the blade speaking of long hours against steel, traces of red drawing a picture she knew well. The woman could feel her muscles tugging, her blood rushing through her veins, _take it, run, run, run_. Gods and all that was sacred, standing in the middle of that city, feeling the warriors’ cries over the walls, all she wanted was to fly.

How she wanted to _fly._

“He will want you safe.”

Hector’s words brought her to the present. Crashed onto her flesh and pulled her back into her mortal coil. She almost snarled.

“Cassandra, please.” How many times he had told her those very same words throughout the years? _Please, do not raise waves. Please, do not tell him the truth. Please, do not provoke him._ It was an odd situation to see him so dutiful, so correct and proper when the basis of his soul was as close to a beast a man could be. It felt wrong to see such after ditching finally disposing of her human pretense. “Tempers are far too serious for you to pass unnoticed. Stay in your place, heed our words and allow father to rest.”

There was no place for her anymore in that kingdom, couldn’t he _see_?

“To pass unnoticed is beyond my reach.” Could he not feel her? Was he not able to look at her, to watch her eyes and feel the shift? _Hecuba_ had. A mortal, a _frail_ mortal woman with not a drop of divine in her veins had seen her eyes and knelt at her feet. Did he not know her? “You should not leave,” she heard herself dictate absently. “Not like this. The man outside does not battle alone.”

The air in his lungs was expelled in one sharp movement. “There you go again, little sister.”

“You sound like the King and it is annoying me.” Her hand closed around the hilt and pushed it from its sheath. Oh, to hold one again, to listen to its music as she moved it through the air. She smiled against her will. A genuine smile, bright and more honest than anything she had done ever since stepping into that country. Her dress danced around her as she turned to him, levelling the sword at his heart. His, his, hers. “Continue. Explain to me how a sword is not a toy. Tell me how this is dangerous.”

Her magic hissed underneath her skin, bristled against the flesh bonds the woman placed on it; it _roared_ against the indignity of a human body housing a Divine soul. And she smiled because this was how it was supposed to be. She and him and a blade on her hands. “Come take it from me.”

It would be so easy to strike.

It would be so lovely.

“Cassandra.”

It would be so much better than to allow anyone else to kill him.

“I find I do not wish to play at her today.”

The sword stepped onto his personal space.

“You know me.”

His eyes were tired, soft; not grey and sharp and cold as any moonless night Morrígan had ever seen. The acrid scent of sweat and leather which was his and solely his still existed; muted and frail, it drafted around her as she moved just close enough to almost touch cold metal and warm flesh. The blade slid slowly against his neck. It could cut, if she moved, if she wanted.

“Come now, hound.” His eyes narrowed, firmly staring into hers, muscles tensed as an animal ready to jump. “This close to death and you haven’t awakened? I find that hard to believe.”

His hands rested on her shoulders and attempted to push her away. Failing that, he took a step back, enough distance between him and the blade and the strange danger posing as his sister.

"What are you doing, Cassandra?”

Without his awareness, his hand reached for a blade. Good. The fear in his words was frankly upsetting her. The confusion.

“That is not my name.”

It was he the first to attack. Like one would attack a serpent slithering by through the night, the sword rushed at her head without pity, forcing her to twist her wrist in a quick movement. The clash of metal was like water to a parched throat.

This was no dance. They were not children playing; they were warriors, old warriors the eldest crossing that world. The movements of the swords clashing were all of economic, of quick and strong, failing to kill for the width of a hair before being pushed aside. That was it, she thought, slashing with the broadsword in front of her, feeling its weight fighting her movement as it reached for his neck. Cassandra was frail, ridiculous, mad. Morrígan was the night and the striking of swords amid battle. This was where she belonged.

Did Hector even know he was smiling as their blades slashed the air? She wondered briefly, not yet lost to the movements. Their swords touched and pulled away, clashed and his teeth were showing, his lips were twisted as eyes narrowed. He didn’t know. Not yet.

“Come now, Hound. _We have no time._ ”

His blade cut through her arm, ripping the immaculate dress apart.

He stopped. The sword stopped. The world halted at the door as he stared at her arm, watching the slow gush of dark red oozing regretfully out of her body, staring up at her narrowed eyes and wide smile. Don’t stop, she almost told him, because it was better to die in that place against her than outside in the name of a coward.

“How can you even do this?”

His breathing had quickened, muscles straining underneath papery-thin skin, covering his thick (and frail and _fragile_ ) frame. Sweat glistened at the fire’s light as adrenaline overtook them both. His grin was all of savage and beautiful. Hector seemed _happy_ , as happy as she had ever seen him in that life, and fear had no place in that room.

 _Like this_ , _like this,_ yelled something hidden well within her, _it was always supposed to be like this_. It was always supposed to be her by his side, on the other side of the battlefield, in front of his blade.

Not Achilles.

Not Thetis.

Her.

“You _know_ me, hound.”

The sword fell by his side. His eyes were smooth grey still, darker and harsher but the tilt of his head, the grind of his jaw... it was not Hector who reached for her, who avoided her weapon to hold her waist and tug her against his armor. His fingers moved to grip the back of her neck, tightening carelessly as if that alone could ground him in that reality.

“Damn you, Rígan.” His head rested against her shoulder as he fought to regain his breathing. “Why have you come now? Why wake me?”

Morrígan did not bother to speak the truth, the needs of the many women which had brought them there. It was easier to omit.

“You took your time.”

The fingers at her neck relaxed a fraction, clawing against her hair.

“Is there a problem if I kill him?”

Laughter bubbled in her chest, struggling to be released against her will. Her hound, her strong, arrogant hound, if it had been ages ago, if he had been aware for longer, she was so sure he would trample the other man into nothing. He was human in this life though; god blood so diluted in his veins, it was virtually non-existent.

Achilles did not belong to Dánaan but he was higher than mortal. Morrígan could see the Goddess sitting on his shouldee; a woman of the sea, who did not belong to the blood-stained ground, to the song of weapons and death and who the crow would easily crush between her talons.

If only Cú would not kill her if she dared to step onto his place. If only he would allow her to fight for him instead of against him just for once.

He wouldn’t. The Goddess could read it in the lines of his face, on the strength that was Hector’s but _not_ quite rippling through the air.

“If you did,” she said instead. “I would be most pleased.”

“Ah. I see.”

Of course, he did. Cú stared from behind Hector’s eyes, grey orbs narrowing as he read everything she wasn’t saying. He knew Death when he saw it.

“Help me get this armor on.”

If anyone had looked in, they would have been confused, she knew. Her hands were soft and sure as she clasped leather and metal around his figure. Mortal, Morrigan realized yet again as her fingers trailed down his skin, so very mortal. This was not a battle worthy of him.

“I should have killed Helen the second she passed through the gates,” the immortal declared lowly, unfocused dark eyes lost in her task.

“Come now, Rígan, don’t be a bore,” the man commented, raising her arms so her deft fingers could tighten straps against his skin. “A fight is a fight. Since when it is new to see a man killing for a woman? For the most beautiful mortal in the world?”

“Paris should be facing that beast not you. I don’t believe in hiding behind those stronger and claim the spoils from fallen bodies. You either fight for what you want or you bleed the earth for your conviction.”

He grinned, a flash of a smile nearly too fast to be captured. Morrígan could feel his free hand digging against her waist as if, at any moment, she would step back. She wouldn’t. Not then, not yet. It was so rare to have a moment such as this, when they stood front to front. He and her, not Cassandra or Hector, not the King or Sorceress, the Emperor, the Lover, the Queen and the General.

Why did she keep shackling herself to this man like that, she wondered vaguely, staring up at his eyes as if they contained all the answers she had been searching for. Would she forget herself one day? The exploration of running through the crowds, the rush of closing her hands onto leather, feeling iron pushing her muscles further than her mortal body was able to?

His head lowered until all she could see was the dark grey, harsh as a violent storm. Even now, he claimed. “How many times will you do this?”

“Until you deny me.”

“Didn’t I before?”

“You always do.”

He pressed his lips against hers. It was quick, blunt and careless and exactly what she needed, feeling his armored fingers digging into her waist as if he wished to push her inside the metal. There was little kindness in it, no softness or gentleness. There was none in him to give or any in her to offer. It was how they were. A hug, a brutal kiss, their dance across the times and it was still not enough.

Something in her kept _wanting_.

Until it stopped, until it died and left nothing behind in her chest, Morrígan would follow.

“Are you sure you do not wish for me to battle by you?”

It was not the ritual speaking those words.

His hands moved to hold her face in a manner that could almost be described as tender. The Goddess did not know what he was searching for in her features but his attention rivaled any scholar she had ever seen. And sorrow. There was sorrow there. “I’m leaving now.”

She expected nothing else. “Make him pay for it.”

“Don’t I always?”

Cú pulled away, forgoing Hector’s usual sword by a long spear which shone against the sunlight and her eyes followed, recognizing her hound in the practiced hold on the weapon. On the arrogant turn of his head. On the vicious grin twisting his lips and coloring his steps in a manner Hector had never dared.

“Do not lose a moment of it, Rígan,” he saluted her briefly with the weapon and his smile widened. “It is in your name.”

Her hands curled in half closed fists, grasping the open air instead of the cold metal and leather of his armor. Did she wish to stop him? Death was his fate. War was their life and purpose. To stop him from doing so, it was against their very nature.

 _Fine_ , she thought to herself. _Fine_. So allow her to be weak. Allow her to care, in her own manner. Who would dare to question a Goddess over what she considered right and _wrong_?

Magic ran through her veins, flooded her body, consumed the space around her until all that one could see – if one dared to look – was shadows made solid, gripping reality in their grasp until only fear was left behind. Fear and feathers, resting upon discarded clothing on the floor.

Above the battleground where Hector found, two crows flew, saluting the soon to die.

A third one joined them.

It cried.


	3. for daring to go against a goddess's will.

**xxxXXXxxx**

Hector was dead.

Cú Chulainn was dead.

It was not the first time the Goddess had seen him dead. She had seen him as a King, falling at his son’s feet. He had been an Emperor, reaching far and falling just short of his dream. He had been the greatest warrior the gods had seen only to fall to treachery. All of that and more, Morrígan had seen. By his side, evaluating, fighting whenever necessary. Never safe and sheltered while others died.

She did not cry as the Prince’s body was dragged through the ground. It was not her way.

Achilles was not satisfied by throwing the greatest adversary he would ever face into nothingness. No. No, the coward had to use him, had to abuse his vessel like the beast he was. Stone cracked underneath her hands as Morrígan watched the cart go around and around the battleground, staining it with the hound’s blood again and again until there was nothing left to be shed.

“You could not save him.”

The woman who was not her blood or her kind or even beloved stood beside her, forcing her eyes to the disgusting spectacle bellow. There was a distinct space between them, one which would have not been there a week before.

“He did not want me to,” the crow acknowledged lowly. “I told you. He never did. He chooses to fight. It is his way to live.”

The mortal woman did not tremble. In fact, one could almost think Hecuba as lifeless as the man she had born. No fear, no frailty, just a strength without name and sorrow without end. The failed ritual hung between them heavily. A chain lacking purpose to exist.

“And this one was not one worthy of him. I told him,” the Goddess continued, staring at the dusty red grounds as her fingers crumbled the stone beneath her touch. “You fight for your cause. For your wish. For those you consider worthy. You fight because your blood sings and there is someone strong on the other side of the battleground. You fall only if your strength is not enough. But why would he heed me? I was never _his_ Goddess.”

They had been everything but. They had been enemies and companions, brother and sister, cousins, shadows on the streets and blades on each other’s hands. They were the sole children of the Dánaan in the scorching land where rain rarely fell.

A hand reached for her arm, aged fingers almost touching; almost but not _quite._

It occurred to Morrígan that the mortal had lost more than one son that day. She had also lost a daughter. One incomprehensible, distant daughter who had, nevertheless, stood by her side.

“Then avenge him instead,” Hecuba whispered, barely heard over the soldiers’ screams. “Can you avenge him?”

The ritual snapped between them, little tendrils slipping through her veins and tugging at whatever was in her chest which made her _more_. The Goddess breathed in deeply, barely aware of shedding any pretense at humanity as she leaned forward. Black hair slipped over her shoulder, eyes which were dark blood and the edges of the night where none wandered, skin darkened as if the sun refused to touch her. Rage flooded her body, hers and _hers_ ; it ran in her veins and pooled in her mouth like poison and bile.

Could she? That was a foolish question. It was more of a question if she should.

The ritual tugged more strongly, wrapped its shackles around her wrists and whispered into her heart. Why should she not? Did she not wish it? Who would tell her she was wrong?

“He did not deserve it,” the queen continued, as if hearing her inner discussion. “He was a good man. A good husband and father. He should not have to pay the price of a city because of the folly of his brother.”

The Goddess leaned forward on the stone walls until she was a step away from tumbling. Achilles still ran in circles on the lands bellow, Hector’s body half crushed, bloodied and broken in his wake. It didn’t matter. Not anymore. He was away, safe and whole in another woman’s belly, waiting for her to follow. It shouldn’t matter.

Except it _did_.

She was Morrígan. Death and battle and revenge. The sea Goddess in the fields had protected her child and that was _fine_. A mother could not do anything else, the Celt realized, sparing a glance at the woman beside her.

But Morrígan would smash him into nothing because that was the price for daring to kill the man she had deemed worthy.

For daring to go against a Goddess’s will.

“Your request has been heard, mortal.”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared into the distance. She didn’t like to kill like this; from afar and without a weapon in her hand. It felt too much like the Greek divinities, up in their palaces instead of running through the battlegrounds. Her kind was honest. You killed on the ground, staring at a man’s eyes as his blood fed the ground. That was the way her grandfather had taught her, stilling her hands on her first blade.

For this time, Paris would be her weapon. It was the least he could do after damning his family so thoroughly.

Sharp teeth dug into her thumb until skin broke. The blood welled slowly, unwillingly, dragging the air towards the ground and the clouds closer together, until the sky seemed ready to break apart. Magic filled the air, slithering down the city’s walls and covering the soil like hot tar.

If the human queen noticed her eyes – red, blood-red, dark and poisonous – she made no comment. Her hands tightened against each other, aged and shriveled and trembling, her head tipped lightly forward against the world bellow. The silence was so respectful, it transported the Celt to her forests and grounds, where her faithful wandered in the light on the moon.

“He was a good boy,” Hecuba’s voice was a hymn, rage and sadness caressing every sound she uttered. “A strong man. He protected us all for so long.”

Lower in the walls, Paris straightened. The bow in his hands was new, not a weapon any of his companions had seen him prefer until that moment. In fact, they had never seen his face as it was, dutiful and expressionless, focused as only the death of a close relative could cause.

None saw the female figure higher up in the walls, mimicking his motions with almost impossible precision.

It was Morrígan gripping the man’s arms, raising the bow in the air and stilling the shaking of his limbs as her magic slipped underneath his skin. Her mind overtaking his, swallowing fear and desire and horror underneath steel and a divine will. Like a mountain resisting the pull of a galaxy of stars. Her fingers trailed over his on the wooden shaft. His eyes saw through hers, more far seeing than any mortal. Her strength joined his on the tense string.

He breathed in.

She breathed out.

“He took my boy.”

_He took mine._

There was a moment in which time froze as the two goddesses’ eyes met across the fields.

The Greek was not a warrior; she was a Lady of the waters and the sea, a divinity of mysteries that Morrígan could not and had no wish to understand. But she was no _warrior_. In the back of her mind, Morrígan heard her screaming in terror, her shout echoing through the immaterial like lightning in the night, her body rushing to attempt to protect her child.

 _Too late_ , the two crows sang above her head.

Achilles stumbled forward as the arrow burrowed into his flesh.

On top of the walls, Morrígan straightened, allowing Paris to stumble away from her control. There were tears in his eyes and shaking, oh, she could see him shaking from her place. A human body was not made to house someone like her. A human soul was not made to be pushed aside. And still, his pain wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, even if he walked by them for countless lives to come.

“That is a start,” Hecuba whispered. Uncaring of what she had just seen, unbelieving or not, she gripped her would-be daughter’s hands against her chest. The elder being felt tears slowly soaking up her skin and each one sounded like a failure.

Her lips rested on the old woman’s forehead. She couldn’t save her. She couldn’t save anyone, not the city, not the hound, not the soldiers in the fields. It was not what she did or who she was.

Morrígan smiled. And, in that smile, there were dark feathers and a night without end.

“I will reap them all for you, mother Hecuba.”

Hecuba’s smile was tremulous and sad.

As honest as a candle from a faithful.

 

**xxxXXXxxx**

_The former Princess followed her victor onto the ship, light skirts trailing dirt and bloodied shores. To all, she seemed unfailingly poised, as if her home was not rubble and her world reduced to slavery. She cared little. The fool truly had no idea what he was inviting into his home and, quite frankly, she did not feel inclined to tell him._

_It would be far more amusing to watch his demise._

_“Come,” Agamemnon tugged at her shackles, guiding her towards the foreign ship. Like she was a pet._

_Morrígan stared him down. Her sisters, her hound, would have seen that gaze and reached for a weapon. She surely would be holding one, ready to open their veins and taste their blood._

_He didn’t know better._

_“You will die soon,” she told him simply._

_His hand rose to strike her and she waited, waited as she had in the temple as the invaders danced around her form and destroyed the Greek Goddess’s home around her, avoiding carefully the space where she sat as if they could not see her._

_Their eyes met._

_Time swam by, hot and slow like the desert morning, and a shiver ran through his body. She could almost feel it, rippling through his flesh, touching the air, bringing a smile to her lips._

_His eyes lowered._

_“Move, woman.”_

_It was worth to undertake such a tiring and humiliating journey just to be there at its end._

_At his end._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this piece is finally done. I'm not entirely sure why it came up to begin with except that I, apparently, enjoy reincarnation storylines far too much. I also realize that Hecuba took the forefront far more but oddly, it fit. Not all fight in the battleground, after all. I hope this odd story was enjoyed. Thank you for reading.


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